What You Are
by Heather Cat
Summary: Scarlet always was beautiful, cold, and cruel. She never was anything else. ScarletReeve


What You Are

            She is beautiful, and they both know it. Whenever she walks into the room, heads turn her way and everyone watches until she's left the room. She was never the type to be self-conscious though, no, not her. Instead she flashes her bright smile, and her white teeth glitter like daggers under the fluorescent lights. Coupled with her red lipstick, he always thought she looked like a predator waiting to make the kill.

            He, on the other hand, is invisible. She loves this fact, and will never let him forget it. In fact, she makes a point of smiling her beautiful, barbed smile for him every day so he will never be able to forget. Her blond hair always tumbles recklessly down her back from the golden coils she pins it up in, as if inviting him to say something, to do more than just watch. The way she moves is captivating, and when she walks into the room he can never do anything but stare and hold his breath. Every time his life hangs on the edge of that razor blade smile, and dark blue eyes are always appraising how much he might be worth

_If someone else showed you the way_

Would you take the wheel and steer?

_It hurts me that you're not ashamed_

_Of what you're doing here_

            He hates everything about the way she works, hates everything about the things she does. He hates himself for not being able to say anything against it. Every time she says a word, he finds himself unable to speak, the shadow to her sunlight. The worst part is that she always looks to him for approval, smiling, daring him to say what he never will. He always nods his head and the meeting is over while he dies inside a little more. Some times she says thank you. Some times she does not.

            He remembers every one of those meetings, remembers the way she meets his dark eyes with even her eyes laughing. Of course he knows the game she's playing. He can name every step and call every beat. But still he does nothing because he knows that if he does she will smile at him, and that time it will be the last time. He sometimes dreams of her as a wolf, and she never does anything but go straight for the throat. Every time they sit at the huge oak table he watches her drum her perfect red nails on the table's surface, and remembers the feeling of her claws tearing into him. The dream is never less painful, and the burning sensation left where her teeth scored his flesh always comes in the morning. But in the dream he always walks towards her, always with a hand outreached.

_If they jumped off a bridge_

_Would you meet them on the ground?_

_Or would you try to claim_

_That it never made a sound?_

            He watches her more closely even than the President does, and he knows all of her little tricks. He watches, awed, frightened, attracted as the brilliant wheels in her head turn and she smiles calculatingly, sweetly, and lays her hand on the President's hand. He can see without trouble how she manipulates them all, playing her own game on a never-ending stage. More often than not she agrees with the group, is always somehow standing there when credit is being handed down. She never hesitates to speak her mind, but yet still is never touched by scandal. He watches her, admires her, hates her and loves her.

            Towards those who have nothing to give she never has mercy. He suspects there is none in her soul to begin with. This game is not the delicate precision demanding one of the upper executives. No, but it is one she enjoys nonetheless. He has stood and watched her lay that same exquisitely manicured hand on the one of an ashen faced employee, still smiling as she tells him that all his assets have been liquidated and his contract is terminated. He has watched her smile saccharinely while telling a traitor to the company that he has only his life left, and soon he will not even have that. It is at times like that one that her true venomous fangs come out.

_Everyone plays the hand they're dealt_

_And learns to walk through life themselves_

_Not everything in life is handed on a plate_

            He knows she was sexually abused as a child and was prostituted out at the age of ten to whoever would take her. She told him once, in his office. He did not believe she had lied; she had more power to gain by telling the truth. She'd told him how she'd become a Turk informant, and the first lead she had given them had been for her father. She'd told him with delicious merriment about how she'd come home to the blood-spattered house and had calmly cleaned it all before disposing of the body in the nearest trash bin. It had been after that incident that she had truly seen what Shinra could offer her. 

            She had worked night and day to get where she was, taking any job that could offer her the information she needed. Perceptive to a fault, she had realized early on that all she had to do to become a secretary was bat her eyelashes, but to make it to the top she'd need brains as well as beauty. She'd taken the lowest of the low jobs for a weapons manufacturer, learning all she could about them. She had taken to the work with alarming ease, and even her earliest designs were works of lethal art. They'd feared her, of course, but she had always been too dazzling to keep down. Shinra had offered her a low paying job as a designer, and she'd cheerfully turned them down. After they saw her what she turned out in the next few months, the offer came again but this time all the stops were taken out.

_When people think your words are true_

_It doesn't matter what you do_

_I sold my soul to get here_

_How about you?_

            She lied, she cheated. She always had. She had a knack for handling truth that he'd never seen the likes of before. He knew how she'd gotten to the very top of her field, and sometimes being the best was not enough. There were always rivals to be disposed of. Sometimes she told him the stories with the hurt eyes of a little girl, who had been forced to do the things she'd done. Other times, she smiled wickedly and tried to share her delight in success at the expense of others with him. He also knew that she had slept with many beneficiaries on her blazing rise to stardom, and had casually killed many of them by proxy once they were no longer useful. Even now she would do anything, stop at nothing to make sure that she came out on top. There are no loyalties in her world.

            He wonders what she sees in him that makes her torture him the way she does. He suspects that she simply enjoys playing with someone who will hope blindly forever for something that never existed. The way she spills her secrets to him as if he were her most trusted ally against the world nearly kills him every time. He hopes it means something, wishes it means something, knows in his dead heart that it means nothing. Just as the hundreds of crushed bodies under the shattered plate that was once Sector 7 mean nothing to her. When she speaks to him these times he imagines he can see something golden under all the anger and hatred and coldness. These are the times when he hates himself and her the most.

_So you choose to force your hand_

_What a strange way to make friends_

_And you always change the rules_

_So the drama never ends_

            He is always drawn to the fire of her latest game, fascinated by the delight she takes in conquest. She loves to watch people lust after her, loves to destroy dreams. He is a prolonged version of the same destructive act, but it does not matter. He wonders if she always realizes what she does to him, or if she has forgotten and does it still. He watches with jealous hatred every time she takes someone to her private apartment, feels horrible satisfaction every time she leaves them broken and maimed against the rocks. She is the lighthouse on top of the cliff surrounded by jagged rocks, or the siren leading sailors to drown themselves in the deeps. He despises the cruelty and everything she stands for and wants her still

            It is the way that she plays suitors against each other, stretching her long legs every time the fire threatens to go out. He asked her once why she did it, and she replied with a smile that it was only because they did not mean anything. Of course, she would never hurt anyone she truly cared about, like him. He is much too good and kind and true to ever do anything like that… No, of course she is sincere and beautiful, and he believes her for a while. When she smiles and leans towards someone, there is no evidence on the Planet that could make anyone believe to the contrary. These days he thinks that he has figured it out. She will continue to visit him, promising, until all the goodness and kindness and trueness has gone forever. Then he will be just like her, and she will destroy him.

_And you blindly go through life_

_Judging only by its worth_

_Just try not to forget_

_That the meek inherit earth_

            He took her shopping one afternoon when she asked him too. She'd smiled and told him in her most whimsical voice that she needed a new dress for the corporate ball. She'd hate to look anything other than her best for the man she intended to ask. His heart in his throat he'd held out his keys and they'd gone in his sleek silver car. He might as well have given her his wallet, his car, and whatever else he'd had on him. On the ride to the upper end boutique she'd told him how much she loved his car, and she'd always wanted one like it. Oh, and what color looks best against silver and black? He was wearing a tuxedo to the ball, of course? He'd smiled back and turned up his radio with the window down while she squealed girlishly with laughter.

            He'd bought the dress for her, of course. He will buy her anything she asks, anytime. She knows it, and seems, oddly, to appreciate it. It is true that she has many fawning hangers-on, but he is a novelty. The depth of her ability to affect his emotions astounds her, and she loves the intoxication and the power. That day after he paid the three thousand gil for her red dress she'd kissed him on the cheek before tugging him by the hand back to the car. The next day she'd asked the head of finances to the ball and had hung off his arm for the days leading up to the party. He hadn't even been surprised, but still no less hurt when she cheerfully did not speak to him for a week.

_Everyone plays the hand they're dealt_

_And learns to walk through life themselves_

_Not everything in life is handed on a plate_

            He hadn't had the happiest life either, although his story was nothing to hers. He'd tried to explain it to her once, about how he'd never gotten along with his parents, and she'd nodded and smiled while saying nothing. She was the only one he'd ever told about his brother. When he'd been trying to tell her about the day he'd come home to find his brother dead on the carpet, holding the gun, she'd interrupted him with a shriek. At the window she had pointed excitedly at a car and had demanded if he knew the make. When he'd replied dully that he didn't she'd excused herself hurriedly before disappearing out the door. She'd assured him that they'd have to chat again soon, and numbly he'd turned to stare out the window. Down below he could just make out her figure as she exited the building, wrapping her slender arms around the new driver.

            There were things he had always kept to himself, but she had the uncanny ability to draw from him his deepest secrets. Once, she'd been sitting on his desk, telling him about her only memories of her mother. He'd held her shaking hand, and had told her about how the only memory he had of his mother was of her falling. He always remembered her flying, although his mind had erased the picture of the ground after her flight. She had held his hand even more tightly, telling him that it meant so much to her that they could share things like this. At the next office party, she'd jokingly told another woman that they'd better not promote him any more because he was likely to jump out the window at any moment.

_When people think your words are true_

_It doesn't matter what you do_

_I sold my soul to get here_

_How about you?_

            The things he wants to tell her fill his mind every time she walks by. Sometimes he imagines that if gets down on one knee that she will understand how he feels and run away with him. He remembers about reality before its too late, but his greatest fear is that one day logic will fail him and he will become her slave entirely. Even now, she laughs her dangerous laugh and he becomes lost in it again. Her blood red lips always widen in a grin to reveal her white teeth.

            He dreams of kissing her, and of taking away all the bad things that ever happened to her in her life. He believes, truly, that circumstances and her pain forced her to become the way that she is today. If he can find a way to tell her that, someday, than maybe she can find who she was always meant to be. He imagines it is a beautiful creature, inside as well as out, but when he closes his eyes all he can see are blue eyes sparkling, waiting for blood to be spilt. He feared at first what she could do to him, and so he sought to ingratiate himself to her. When he realized that nothing she could do to his career could hurt more than what she'd already done he stopped caring. She found it cute and started hanging around his office more and more.

_So please don't take offense_

_This is just a point of view_

_'Cause I'm the only one who_

_Will say these things to you_

            He sits in his office, watching as she sits lazily on the chair across from his desk, legs crossed. She knows that he doesn't mind her intrusion, and she smiles at him so that he has no doubts. Today he has decided to try to talk to her, and to get her to see what the new project will do to everything. If she sees, than she will change her mind, of course. 

            "Scarlet, you can't go through with Sister Ray."

            "Oh? And why not?"

            "It will destroy too much. It will obliterate anything it hits, and it will drain all the life out of anywhere it's set up."

            "Occupational hazard I'm afraid."

            He stares at her, astonished.

            "Don't you care? In Midgar there are hundreds of thousands of people who need that energy to live!"

            She laughs and gets up from her chair.

            "You're just much too good at heart. It's people like you that make this world still worth living in, you know that?"

            She tells him every other time they meet. He does know that.

_Everyone plays the hand they're dealt_

_And learns to walk through life themselves_

_Not everything in life is handed on a plate_

            He begins to feel desperate, and looks about for words to make her understand. It is not necessary to destroy thousands of lives. What she is doing is not right. He does not want any part of it, but still clings to the idea that he can help her change the way things are going. He already begins to know in his heart that if he is to survive here any longer he must betray them all or die amongst her other trophies. If he can just show her that he cares, perhaps she will come with him, and they can stop the senseless destruction together.

            "Scarlet, you're a beautiful person. You're better than all of this. You don't need Shinra to get by. With your skills you could do anything you wanted and still live like a queen. Horrible things have happened to you, but you can escape them." 

            She looks at him, amused, before sitting gently on his desk. Her eyes reflect her smile, and she arches a perfect eyebrow.

            "Oh, and what will I do if I leave, then? There's nothing for me out there."

            He clutches for fragments of words.

            "Come with me! We can leave here together."

            She smiles now, and he feels himself freeze. He has said too much, and he knows it. She leans forwards towards him until their lips almost touch, their breath mingling together. There is deadly suspicion and delight in her eyes, and they sparkle in a more beautiful and frightening way than he ever thought possible. She raises her perfect hand and lays it on his shoulder before pulling back a little. The deadly smile does not change.

            "Have I ever told you how much I love you, Reeve?"

            Suddenly, he is completely certain that he has never been more afraid in his life. He sees an image of his mother falling from the balcony, her dress streaming behind her, and it plays behind his eyes. She has never used the word love before. She has never told him how much she loves him. And with everything that is still human inside him, he prays that she never will.

_When people think your words are true_

_It doesn't matter what you do_

_I sold my soul to get here_

_How about you?_

~ 

Lyrics from the song How About You by Staind.


End file.
